And all the roads that lead you there are winding
by CloudyDream
Summary: Nothing ever happens to John Watson, until he moves into 221B Baker Street with the brilliant and uncanny Jim Moriarty. Then a lot of things happen, all at once. Because there's not enough John & Jim interactions in this world. AU obviously, but a relatively minor one at that. Darkish fic, purely gen so far, more to come.
1. Chapter 1

Nothing ever happened to John Watson.

That was it, nothing ever happened to John Watson until the day he got shot, and then he woke up in a military hospital somewhere and got sent back home; and then nothing else happened to him, the way it always had.

John himself had spent many sleepless night pondering that, trying to remember when exactly he'd gotten so boring that the only slightly remarkable thing in whole lifelong history had been a bullet to the leg.  
To be fair it hadn't been only the one bullet, not really, and there_ had_ been more to his life – lovers and killings and friends and the whole package – but, in the end, the wound was all that seemed to matter. Sometimes John wondered if that was what people were going to remember about him, the bullet. Maybe they'd have it written on his tombstone._ Here lies John Watson, beloved son and brother. He got shot_.

And that was usually when things got morbid, and he would get tired of tossing and turning, get up and go sit at the desk. The gun was always there in his drawer, smooth and cold and beautiful, his weight familiar in John's hand. Every night he hold it longer, looking for the perfect spot. _Here lies John Watson, beloved son and brother and patriot._ The barrel was salty against his tongue, or maybe that was just his imagination. _Here lies John Watson, some Afghani shepherd shot him but didn't bother to finish the work_.  
Night after night after night, like a lullaby.

John never told his therapist, but she probably figured it out anyway.

On the day John met Mike Stamford, nothing happened. They chatted for a while, had lunch together and promised to stay in touch, not really meaning it. Mike promised to ask around to see if any of his colleagues was interested in a flatmate and John had smiled politely and said thank you, all the meanwhile imagining one Mike's colleagues walking in on him with his gun in his mouth.

After that John went home, spent two hours trying to come up with something interesting to write, and promptly forgot about the whole thing until two weeks later, when Mike called him about a friend's mate looking for a roomie.  
The name, Mike told him, was Jim, and that was how it all started.

For his part, John had spent the better part of the two weeks doing nothing. He wandered around, kept ignoring Harry's calls and spent more time than it was strictly healthy staring at his laptop's screen.  
He should have been doing something else – _anything_ else – but _couldn't_, stalling and waiting and merely existing, until the day Mike called and his life started making sense again.

"A friend of mine called," Mike had started after the usual pleasantries. "Saying one of _his_ friends is looking for someone to share with."

"You never met him then?" John inquired, forgetting even to thank, because this was so sudden and _real_ and meant not leaving London, and John couldn't imagine his life anywhere else.

"Never," the other confirmed, "but seems a nice enough bloke. Never around, he's got some fancy job abroad, so don't worry, it'll be like living alone."

No one walking in on anything, then. John wondered briefly if the other man knew how much his privacy and solitude meant to him, how fucked up and paranoid he'd become, before deciding he really didn't want to know.

"Thank you, Mike"

"You're welcome" Mike said. "Get a pen and some paper, I'll give you his number. Okay, ready? Name's Jim, Jeff says. Jim Moriarty, write it down. M – O – R…"

* * *

John called Jim Moriarty that same afternoon, and ended up with the address of an apartment that sounded way too central to be affordable, and a lunch date at a Chinese restaurant in the same street.

It was the other man who approached him first, with a charming smile on his face and wearing a suit that was worth at least a month of John's pension, if not more.

"Hello. John Watson, I suppose." His voice was firm and confident, the smile still plastered to his face, just a bit too bright and enthusiastic to be genuine. There was something slightly off about that smile, John decided.

"Yes." John cleared his throat. "Yes, that's me. Jim Moriarty, right?"

"Right." And here it was again, that confident voice and the flash of teeth, and John found himself out of things to say. That could get really awkward very quickly, and he was just about to start talking about something, _anything_, when Moriarty went straight to the point.

"So, you want me to show you the place right now, or you think we can get some lunch first?" He paused and for a moment John could have sworn the other man was about to wink – except he looked way too posh for something so plebeian, of course. "My treat. I'm the one supposed to woo you over, after all."

His smile was open and warm and _definitely_ off. Somehow. Not fake, not really, but practised over and over again to the point of perfection, and John was suddenly reminded of an actor – or a politician. Moriarty had saved him from chatting about the weather though, and he couldn't help but feel absurdly glad, imagining the scene. _So, do you think it's going to rain like it does about every other day, or maybe it'll be foggy and humid like it does the rest of the time? _

Because that would have gone so very well.

"I'm really not that hungry, thank you." John didn't do charity, not yet at least, but made a mental note to go back to the place. Chinese food was tasty and cheap, and the sign above the door said they had an all-you-can-eat buffet every day at six. "I'd love to see the flat though."

_There_, John though. _Let's get this over with_.

Moriarty shot it a half smile, an amused glint in his eyes and, for the first time since the beginning of the conversation, John knew he had his full attention.

"Not one for useless social conventions, aren't you Doctor Watson?" His voice was different now. Slightly hoarser, less artificially pleasant, and certainly more sincere. "Thanks God, I _hate_ those. Now, let's go – place's two minutes from here."

Moriarty's two minutes where, to John's great surprise, two actual minutes, on foot. It was a wonderful opportunity, he'd decided before even reaching the flat, and too expensive even to consider.

"How much would my share be?" John asked abruptly, and Moriarty stopped walking, staring at him.

"Sorry," he added, lamely. "It's just, I wasn't expecting anything so, well, _central_, and I'd like to know before we waste all day."

The other smiled again that half smile, and told him a figure.

John just stared, his mouth half open. "Really," he found himself saying flatly.

Moriarty shrugged and started walking again, John trying to keep up. "Doctor, I travel a lot. Actually, I am abroad for months at the time."

John nodded, wondering what the point of it was. "Alright."

"_Nightmare_ for the housekeeping, you'll see when we get there. Honestly, before I heard of you, I was about to start paying someone for showing up every once in a while. This works so much better, and we both get what we want." His eyes darted towards John's. "Besides, you seem _interesting_."

John didn't quite know what to make of that.

"Ah… thank you?"

"You're welcome." They stopped in front of a black painted door. 221B, it said.

"Now, here we are."

* * *

It took John some time to make the first landing of the stairs, and the door was already opened when he arrived. The place was quite large and comfortable, and a downright _mess_.

It wasn't the kind of disorder that comes from inattention and laziness, a kind John had seen a fair share of during his years living with Harry as a child, and in university after that. There were no objects in particularly strange places, no clothes shattered around, and everything looked lived in and natural, the way any other house in London might look if their tenants decided to disappear in the middle of the day and never come back.

That in 221B, John noticed, was the disarray of neglect, of a perfect slice of everyday life left frozen for months, of layers of fine dust and stale air.

"Yeah, I can see what you meant." He said, evenly.

Moriarty snickered. "In my defence, I literally just got back."

"How long where you away?"

"Five weeks, more or less."

_Five weeks, _John though_. Yes, that's a lot like living alone._

"It's perfectly quiet most of the time." Moriarty seemed to read his mind. "And it does look better when it's clean. There's another bedroom upstairs, never used, even though I haven't opened the windows in a while either."

It was John's turn to chuckle.

"What about the landlord, where is he?"

"Oh, no landlord," there was something different in Moriary's voice the more he went on talking, as if the calm, business-like voice had been a well-rehearsed speech, like a salesman talking to the mirror. He'd started speaking somewhat faster, in a slightly higher pitch, and it strangely seemed to suit him better.

"I bought the place when Mrs H. moved to Florida," Moriarty continued, moving around the flat and getting into the kitchen. "That was a few years ago. That's the bathroom, here."

"Florida."

"Florida," the other confirmed. "Husband lived there, or something."

Moving to Florida sounded funny to John for some reason he couldn't quite define. Maybe it just sounded silly. _Florida_.

"So, landlady packed and moved to Florida, where did you go? Brazil?"

The words were out of his mouth before he had time to think, and John immediately regretted them, feeling as though he might blush. He usually minded his own business, and expected others to do the same.

"Sorry," he added. "Didn't know where that came from."

Moriarty gave no sign of having heard the apology – in truth, he looked like a kid on Christmas Day, and John could say he'd wanted him to ask.

"Tibet."

"Tib…" It took John a couple of seconds to realize the other was actually being serious. "Of course."

Fucking _Tibet_.

There was a rather smug expression on Moriarty's face, and John really didn't want to give him the satisfaction to ask.

It was ten minutes and a complete tour of the flat later – the bedroom upstairs really was nice, and not nearly as dusty as the rest – before John let his curiosity have the best of him.

"And, what is that you _do_?"

"Oh, nothing much," Moriarty smiled, his voice was all dismissal and nonchalance and it couldn't have been more evident to see how much he was _dying_ to brag about it. "But it's lots of fun."

John felt like snorting at that, not really trying to be subtle about it, and Moriarty smiled that uncanny smile of his.

"I'm a consultant, really. Talk to people, give advice. I fix their problems, make 'em go away" He looked gaze with John. "So, you see. Things. Bit of this, bit of that."

* * *

**A/N**: So, what about this? I've had this idea for a while, because there's just not enough John&Jim interaction in this world. Also, Jim is less crazy than canon and I'll let you guess where this puts Sherlock – who's not around yet and won't be for a while, but will be awesome when he finally shows up.  
So, this is me, discretely asking and absolutely not begging for feedback. Really, this is the first Sherlock fic I've posted on here, and I would love to get your opinions about it. Pretty please?


	2. Chapter 2

"And you haven't done anything else since then."

Doctor Thompson's voice was low enough John had to lean in closer to understand her, but there was not mistaking the neutral expression on her face – it was the same one John used when one of his patients was being too damn stubborn for their own good.

"No," he repeated, slowly. "I haven't done anything else."

And then, because she kept looking at him without blinking even once, John felt the need to say more. "I got a place, a very nice one I might add, I guess this covers my to-do quota for the rest of the month."

He'd started drumming his fingers, John realized, _da_-_da_-_dada_-_da_. Again and again and again, noise filling the silence of the room.

It was five minutes before Thompson spoke again.

"John," she started, that careful, expressionless mask still on her face, "are you satisfied with your life?"

He laughed like it was the funniest joke in the world.

"Are you seriously asking that, Doctor?"

"It's Ella, John. And yes, I am."

Maybe it _was_ a joke – it was the only explanation he could come up with.

"Well I'm not. When I ask if you're serious, you're supposed to understand it's because I'm too polite to tell you it's a stupid question."

Thompson kept on talking as if she hadn't heard him. "If you aren't satisfied, maybe you should do something about it." She sounded like she was in Infant school talking to a particularly slow child, and John found himself hoping he didn't sound like _that_ when he talked to his patients.

"The flat was a great first step. But what's next?"

John didn't say anything, and she sighed.

* * *

The flat was indeed a great first step, John had to agree with his therapist on that one. It was a better accommodation than he'd ever hoped to find, and ridiculously underpriced to boot. John's new flatmate had only remained in London for a couple of days, leaving even before John had the time to move in, and come back a week later in the middle of the night, only to disappear again less than fifty hours later.

It was, in the end, a perfect, if unconventional, living arrangement, and gave John a quiet sense of optimism about his immediate future. Life had never been this good in a long, long time.

As the days went by John found himself thinking about Jim Moriarty a couple of times, mainly, wondering what the hell he was up to, before firmly reminding himself it was none of his business. He spent his days walking around London like he did before, bought Mike a few drinks to thank him for his help, and even managed to write a two-lines long post on his blog.  
All in all, it was all perfectly normal until the day he got his first visitor.

The man was in his mid-thirties, with dark hair in need of a haircut – or maybe it was the time passed around military men that gave John that impression – and looking like he was in an extreme hurry to get somewhere.  
He'd ringed just as John was getting out, looking surprised to see him getting out of the building.

"Hello." The man called, uncertain. "I'm looking for Jim. Moriarty. Does he … I mean, he still lives here, right?"

"Yeah." John hurried to assure, curious. It was the first time he heard of an acquaintance of Moriarty's in the three weeks since he'd moved to Baker Street. "I'm his flatmate. John Watson," he added, holding out his hand.

The other man took it, half-smiling. "Flatmate, really. Never thought I'd see the day."

"Why's that?" John found himself asking, puzzled. "I mean he's never around, so he's not like to care that much either ways."

The man laughed. "Yes, well, it when he _is_ around that it gets funny."

Before John could say anything else the man blinked and looked at him once again. "Wait, John Watson.. you're Mike's army friend, aren't you?"

"Yes." John said, slowly. "Wait. You're the one that got me the flat? Thanks… Jeff, right? Wait, want to come in?"

The man shook his head, grimacing a little. "Just Anderson's fine."  
He looked so much like Harry did when someone called her Harry that John had to fake a cough to hide a laugh.

"Right, so, Anderson, sure you don't fancy some coffee? Got some left. I can even make tea if you want, though that'd take a while…"

"No, it's fine." Anderson interrupted, showing up a plastic folder. "I just needed to drop this and I'll be on my way, we're having a bit of a situation at work and I need to hurry."

"Alright," John took the folder. It looked like the ones he'd used as a student, blue and thick and cheap. "Thanks. Wait, do you work at Bart's, too?"

"Ah, no." The other man shook his head again. "Police. I'm on forensics."

"Right," john answered again, trying to come up with something else to say. "What kind of situation do you have?"

There must have been some alarm in his voice, because Anderson chuckled.

"Nothing too bad. It's those suicides we can't get the hang on. They found another one this morning and everyone's going mad, even though that's really not much we can do about it." He shrugged "It'll probably be in the news by tonight."

John had heard of the suicides a few times in the last months, read something on the papers, and couldn't help by feeling curious, despite everything. "Christ. How many's that?"

"Six." Anderson answered. "And the press's gonna love this one even more."

He shook his head third time, and spoke up again before john could say anything else. "I'd ask you when Jim's coming back, but that'd probably be useless. So, just tell him to ring when he gets to read that, alright?"

"Sure." John answered. "Have a good evening."

Anderson nodded once and walked away, leaving John standing on the doorway with a blue plastic folder in his hands.

* * *

It was another five days before Moriarty was back, opening the door at seven thirty in the morning, looking somewhat tanner but impeccably dressed as ever.

"Thailand," was the only thing he said to john's inquisitive gaze. "The food was _terrible_."

It was another day before John remembered Anderson and the papers he'd dropped off. "Anderson stopped by," he spoke out during lunch. Well, his lunch. Moriarty's meals didn't seem to follow a normal schedule. "Brought something for you."

"Uh?" The other man was busy typing away on his phone, the way he seemed to do every time he was in the same room as John, fingers flying away on the screen.

"Anderson. Left this for you." And he pointed to the blue folder.

"Ah, right. Thanks. How long ago?" And then. "Did he say anything?"

John shrugged. "Not really. He was in a hurry because of the, uh, the suicide thing. Said to call him when you read the papers in there, whatever they are about."

Moriarty had discarded the phone for what John seriously suspected was the first time in weeks, and started flicking through the folder. "Alright." He frowned. "Who died this time? The suicide"

_And here I was_, John thought, pushing around the beans in his plate, _feeling guilty for being curious_. Good to know he wasn't the only one.

"Some girl from some reality." A Stella D-Something, Dorbak or Dubeau or similar. She'd been on the news for days, just like Anderson had predicted, on every tabloid and chat shows. Her parents went on television to explain just what a loving thing their daughter was, happy and about to marry, and how she would have never committed suicide and how very scared and sad they were, and then her fiancé did the same on a rival channel, saying the exactly same thing. "I think her sister's on the telly tonight." _Or maybe the cousin_.

"Really." Moriarty seemed to perk up at that. "Do you think the family will want to know what really happened?"

John's fork stopped halfway to his mouth, and some beans fell out. "Well," he said. "Of course."

"Hey, Not judging, here." Moriarty raised his hands, theatrical as ever. "If they don't, their own business. But if they do feel like finding out what happened…" And he stopped, shrugging.

"What?" John had started to really hate indulging in his flatmate's obvious need to show off, but this time he really couldn't help it. _Too curious for your own good_, Harry used to say when they were kids.

"Well," Moriarty started, smiling that smug smile. "This does seem like a problem it ought to be fixed right?"

* * *

Ella Thompson was the one who made him start with the Internet search, John was sure of it.

"You should start writing again," she had told him on their latest appointment. "Did you write anything at all on that blog of yours?"

She had known he had of course, but just that one time on the day he moved in. John had told her as much, and she'd smiled.

"And nothing else since then?" Thompson had pressed. "You started looking for work yet? You might write about that. Or what about that roommate of yours?"

John had barely suppressed a sigh at that, trying to remember why on Earth he'd told his therapist about Jim Moriarty in the first place. "It's a _blog_, Elle. On _the Internet_. I doubt he'd appreciated that."

"You won't know until you try though, right?"

John had sunk back into his chair, and said nothing, and looked up his flatmate as soon as he'd had the chance.

There was no James Moriarty on any social network, popular email servers or private websites. He wouldn't have believed possible if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes – not just the absence of his flatmate, but rather the fact that, according to his search engine, there was no one named James Moriarty in the entire world.

Every single trace of Moriarty – any Moriarty, really – had been removed, carefully, piece by piece. It was all so perfect, so accurate and precise, like the man himself was. With no job and nothing better to do, John's curiosity got the best of him, and he found himself spending an obscene amount of time trying to unravel the mystery that was his flatmate. In the end, it took him three more days to find something.

_I'm a consultant_, Moriarty had said, _I fix thing_, and that was what John started to look for, trying keyword after keyword, searching for the traces that _had_ to be there. _When you got a problem, who do you call?_

The page he stumbled across in the was minimalist to the extreme, even more bare than John's forgotten blog. There were only two lines of text, bolded against the white screen page. _Dear Jim…_, it said, with a email address on the next line, the kind of silly-sounding address and service provider a teenager might use. He wondered just how many people managed to find the page, and what the reason for all the paranoia was, before bookmarking the page and going to sleep

* * *

"Found my page, didn't you?"

Moriarty sounded as smug as ever, and John almost let his cup fall to the floor.

"What t …" he forced himself to take a deep breath. "Nevermind." Jim Moriarty, John had realized on their first meeting, was perhaps the biggest drama queen he'd ever met, even more so than Harry, and he didn't even need to look him in the face to know how much the other man was enjoying John's evident surprise. He tried to keep his voice even. "Yes, yes I did. Nowhere as impressive as I expected, though."

John made his way to the chair by the television, the cup warm in his hands, barely sparing a glance for Moriarty, who sat at the table watching something on his laptop.

"Not impressive," there was something strangely resembling childish disappointment in Moriarty's voice and John almost laughed out loud. "Really."

"Well, yes." Nowhere as fancy and extravagant as Moriarty usually was. "Quite unremarkable. Do people actually send you emails to that address?"

The other man snorted. "Of course they do. It's _discreet_."

"Right." The way Moriarty said it, _discreet_, made him sound like he was in some cloak-and-dagger period drama, or maybe a spy-thriller, and he probably did it on purpose. And then John remembered something else he hadn't given much thought to in the past, another of Moriarty's boasts. "What about the dead girl, the suicide? Did her family send you an email too?"

"Actually, yes."

"Really." John couldn't quite keep the disbelief out of his voice.

"Really," Moriarty confirmed. "But I had to turn it down. Shame, it sounded interesting."

"Of course." The other man kept a perfect straight face and voice, and John didn't know whether to believe him or not. The fact that Moriarty was probably having the time of his life didn't help the matter in the least. "Weren't you so excited about it only a week ago?"

Suddenly Moriarty's mobile went off, noise filling the room. It sounded almost like nails scratching on a chalkboard, one, two, three times, and John shivered in spite of himself.

"Personalised text alert. Sorry 'bout that." And he actually sounded sorry, even. That had to be a first.  
"So, really excited, but that was a week ago." He started texting back, and John wondered for a moment who was the person who deserved nails on a chalkboard as personalised text alert.

"And what, you got bored in the meanwhile?"

"Among other things." He hit _send_ and put the phone back on the table. "Sadly the poor girl was bankrupted, and her parents had another girl to put through university."

He glanced at John and shrugged. "What? I'm freelance, not a charity."

"Right." John moved to stand up, trying not to wonder what _freelance_ was supposed to mean. "I think I'll be going out for a walk."

Moriarty made a non-committal noise and went back to his computer, humming under his breath. John put his cup into the sink, put on a jumper and went out on the street, too distracted to notice the security cameras following his every move.

* * *

**A/N**: So, Anderson gets along with Jim Moriarty, because: _funny_. Also, the name Jeff, just like the weird obsession with Florida, it's a favourite of Moffat's, and it makes sense we never heard it on the show if Anderson doesn't like his own name. The 'suicides' are still going on because there was no Sherlock to solve the _Study in Pink_ case. In case you're wondering who's funding the cabbie, well, that'll have to wait. If you're wondering what the deal with Moriarty is, I hope this chapter made it clearer. Not completely clear – wouldn't wanna give away too much too soon, after all – but a little, maybe.  
I really do hope you're enjoying this, and I'd love some feedback. Thank you so much, and have a good day!


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